Chapter 157 A barely perceptible touch slipped through the tear in the clothing...

It wasn't a hallucination...

Pipa stared intently at the vines before her, a burning heat rising in her eyes, and her nose began to sting with tears.

He really heard it; the sound was coming from the vine.

He had finally waited for this day of reunion.

Although everything was so absurd, he had been looking forward to this day for far too long.

From the moment she boarded that large ship leaving home, Pipa began to fantasize about a world where her mother was still alive.

—You can't turn back.

—Don't open your eyes either.

Once you do that, you'll find that the shore has always been deserted.

No one will come anymore.

Because everyone...

Those people are all...

"Silly child, why are you crying? If you keep crying, what will you do if you hurt yourself?" Her mother's voice came again, full of tenderness.

Pipa could almost picture that smiling face and the loving gaze directed at her in her mind...

It was as if everything was exactly the same as it was back then.

But how distant a memory was that for him?

The loquat closed its eyes.

Then the vines continued gently, saying, "Cheer up, child. It's been so long since we've seen each other again; we should be happy."

“But—” Pipa took a deep breath, feeling as if something was blocking her throat.

Upon hearing this, the vines stopped moving again, their palm-sized leaves clustered together and tilted to one side, seemingly puzzled by the boy's words.

The vines look like ordinary vines.

Unlike the monsters in some supernatural tales, they do not have human-like facial features.

But Pipa clearly heard the other person "speaking" earlier.

At this moment, I felt a silent gaze, but it didn't come from the vines in front of me. Instead, it was as if someone was looking down at me from a higher and farther place.

The gaze seemed to have a tangible quality.

Even though the boy didn't look up to meet that gaze, he could still feel the stinging pain.

Like a thorn in one's back.

"But I clearly remember that my mother is dead, isn't she?"

[...]

“It was I who buried my mother with my own hands. It was I who placed that string of copper coins in my mother’s palm and then filled her grave with soil, handful by handful.”

Hearing no response, the boy continued speaking to himself, his face still bearing traces of tears, yet a faint smile appeared on his lips, a smile that seemed both mocking and self-deprecating.

"Even if I do have the filthy blood of those who collude with evil flowing in my veins, even if I was forced to give birth to a monster like me who deserves to be torn to pieces and die without a burial place, my mother will never become anything else. She has always been a clean person."

To live as a person, and to die as a person.

Since reincarnation exists, then my mother must have already been reborn as a human and will go to a place that is more suitable for her.

"I will never... I will never become this kind of nonsensical thing."

As soon as he finished speaking, the dagger was drawn from its sheath.

Where the cold light passed, the vine twisted and split in two.

The moment it hit the ground, the once lush green vines suddenly transformed into half a long, entirely emerald-green snake, its head still pointing towards the boy, sharp fangs protruding from its wide-open mouth.

The next moment, the ground suddenly trembled slightly.

Pipa knew that it was the so-called "tree roots" under her feet that were causing the problem.

As he dragged Yu Qingzhou's body closer to him, he cut down the snake vines that were moving around nearby.

It must be said that the dagger Shen Yun gave him was really useful.

Cutting those things is like cutting a watermelon.

Soon, the ground beneath their feet was piled high with strange snake heads.

What's strange is that none of the severed snake heads had eyes; the places where the eyes should have been were sunken in and covered with fine scales.

Whether or not they have eyes does not actually have much impact on snakes' hunting ability.

Pipa couldn't help but wonder where their missing eyes had gone.

perhaps--

The answer lies in the faint starlight overhead.

But do snakes' eyes glow in the dark?

Pipa's mind went blank for a moment, and she almost got strangled by a snake vine that wrapped around her from behind.

Fortunately, the boy regained his senses in time, and those things were moving relatively slowly.

Only then could he be given a moment to catch his breath and forcefully swing the dagger.

With a whoosh, the restraints around his neck snapped.

But at the same time, he suddenly felt a pain in his shoulder. It turned out that another snake vine had taken advantage of the chaos to approach and bite his shoulder.

Although the snake vine was subsequently cut off.

But the shoulder that was bitten started to hurt intensely, and the pain spread to the arm and neck, causing the other half of Pipa's body to lose mobility.

Pipa knew things were going badly. With her leg injury recurring, she was already practically a cripple.

Now that another hand is useless, it's basically game over...

—But, are we just going to wait to die like this?

Pipa struggled to wield the dagger, severing several more snake vines without dulling the blade. His movements, however, grew increasingly slower as he raised his hand to parry.

Finally, with a clang, the dagger slipped directly from his hand.

Pipa then belatedly realized that her palms were already soaked with sweat. The dagger had slipped and flown away.

By the time he reached out to pick it up, the item had already vanished into the writhing vines...

A wave of despair washed over the boy.

I never imagined that I would end up being bitten to death by a swarm of snakes.

As for what happens after death, it will probably become nourishment for that enormous creature that is neither snake nor vine, and will be dragged into the deeper darkness and buried there.

—Will there be an afterlife?

If there is an afterlife, please don't let him remember this terrible ending.

Of course, the best thing would be not to have an afterlife.

Perhaps the snake venom had already spread, or perhaps exhaustion had taken its toll too late.

The loquat collapsed, exhausted, into the pile of snakes.

In the very last moment, he wanted to see Yu Qingzhou one last time—

But where can one still see Yu Qingzhou?

Only a swarm of green vines, like locusts in a locust plague, slowly and twisting as they crawled toward him—

Wait, vines?!

Pipa blinked and clearly saw that the snake vines had somehow turned back into the same kind of vines she had seen at the beginning.

The boy found it strange; weren't they planning to devour him?

How did it revert back?

Then something even stranger happened.

The vines have changed from their previous fierce style.

They simply gathered around him, but hesitated to make any further moves, as if they were hesitating about something.

—Could it be that they only attack things that move?

Pipa thought incredulously, "If that's the case, then what I did before was just courting death."

However, before the boy could truly begin to regret it...

Then the vines moved.

It was like a cautious, tentative exploration.

The loquat tree could faintly hear the rustling of branches and leaves, and the soft rustling of fabric.

Then I felt a faint touch, probing in through the tear in my clothes.

That smooth and soft touch reminded Pipa of the curled tendrils that had been touched on her forehead earlier.

However, this time there isn't just one.

Instead, several tentacles extend from different directions simultaneously, then disappear beneath the clothing.

It seemed to realize that its prey had completely lost the ability to resist.

The tentacles grew bolder, transforming from their initial, almost imperceptible touches into more direct climbing and entwining...

From the moment she heard the noise, Pipa held her breath.

He anxiously awaited the onset of even more intense pain, waiting for those tentacles to pierce his skin like roots in the earth, frantically sucking his flesh and blood...

But no, it didn't happen.

The tentacles didn't seem particularly interested in his wound, merely circling around it without probing further.

In contrast, they seem more interested in the body itself.

Because, the loquat felt that the tendrils seemed to be stretching longer and longer under her clothes, and the way they touched her was becoming increasingly strange...

It's like...

It felt like gently stroking his body inch by inch.